HP InfiniBand FDR 2-port 545M Converged Networks and Fibre Channel over Ethern - Page 9

• Since FCoE was first announced, the Ethernet community has assumed that FCoE packets could move across any Ethernet switch that implemented the DCB features. Cisco's direction represents a fundamental shift away from the Ethernet model and toward the Fibre Channel model in which storage networks always use switches from a single vendor. • Every switch in the data center requires Fibre Channel switch firmware. The connections between those switches are Virtual Ethernet (VE) Ports. In this Cisco approach, VE Ports emulate an Ethernet port over a non-Fibre Channel link because traffic is running over Ethernet. It is well known that connecting VE ports from two different vendors together forces a Fibre Channel network into a least common denominator mode, which is not useful. FSPF runs as a closed protocol between those switches to build the forwarding tables for Fibre Channel and FCoE traffic. • Nearly every enterprise customer in the world already has Fibre Channel installed, and thus has chosen between the Cisco and Brocade switch families. Proprietary features of Cisco and Brocade switches prevent them from interoperating well over an Ethernet port. For that reason, most enterprises will run their data center backbone switches on one or the other Fibre Channel code base, and thefore must buy these switches only from the Fibre Channel switch vendor using that code base. The absense of a single Fibre Channel code base makes the approach proprietary and undesirable, limiting customer choice, and inhibiting development of a robust ecosystem. Table 5 expands on the state of convergence standards in the industry. Table 5. The state of convergence standards Dependency Done on paper Basic FCoE protocol, CNA, Yes FCF, 1-hop connection from CNA to FCF * Flow control (PFC, 802.1Qbb) Yes Proven in real use Yes Yes, at small scale Ready for Mainstream customer use Early adopters Congestion Management Yes No (QCN, 802.1Qau) Early adopters FCoE FIP initialization, FIP Snooping, FCoE network security model Yes. FIP snooping and network security model in an appendix Multi-vendor interoperability unlikely in this generation Early adopters Large data center networks Still in technical debate No that will accommodate arbitrary FCoE traffic Technology experiments Cisco approach: all switches forward FCoE using FSPF (at Layer 3 as if a Fibre Channel switch) Yes. inherently single vendor, no congestion management Yes, at small scale Deployments no more complicated than existing FC SANs * Limited support for FCF-per-hop makes it a proprietary, single-vendor approach for the immediate future. Using HP Flat SAN technology to enhance single hop FCoE Fibre channel is the storage fabric of choice for most enterprise IT infrastructures. Until now, Fibre channel required an intermediate SAN fabric to create your storage solution. However, this fabric can be expensive, and can result in increased complexity and IT infrastructure costs. We have improved efficiency of server and storage connectivity with HP Virtual Connect direct-attach Fibre Channel for 3PAR Storage Solutions with Flat SAN technology. You can now connect HP 3PAR Storage Systems directly to the HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric Modules (Figure 3). That eliminates the need for an intermediate SAN switch complex, multitier SANs, and excess networking equipment. This innovative solution requires no SAN fabric licenses. In an existing fabric-attach environment, you can use the 3PAR Storage Solutions with Flat SAN technology to direct-attach and fabricattach storage simultaneously. More information is available in "HP Virtual Connect direct-attach Fibre Channel for HP 3PAR Storage Systems solutions brief" at http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA4-1557ENW.pdf 9